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The Struggle of being a First Time Buyer

10.4.17

This post is more of a rant..I'm so fed up at looking at homes. Calum and I have been looking for a house for about a year now and we still can't find anything suitable enough.I know the biggest problem in our house hunt is that we don't want a flat, we want a house. A lot of people say we should just get a flat to get on the market, but why should we? Getting a flat in Edinburgh is bad enough as it is, plus we both have cars so it just wouldn't suit. We are keen to move away from Edinburgh to East or Midlothian - surrounded by the countryside or near beaches.We thought that getting a new build would be a better idea, but we soon realised they're a bit of a con. We looked at a two bedroom house in Musselburgh, East Lothian with a reputable developer, at first we were convinced that it was our house. Then when they released the prices a few months later, they upped it by £10k and we were devastated. We could no longer afford it on the Help to Buy scheme.Our hopes were dashed, until we discovered that the same builder had new homes in a town in Midlothian. We went along and again, we had to wait until the prices were released. We didn't get our hopes up because our fingers had already been burnt before. And, not surprisingly, they hiked the prices right up so we couldn't afford Help to Buy again.I don't think house builders understand how much stress and upset they cause by having really high priced homes, then adding more on top of what's advertised! I know these companies need to make a profit, but think about the homes - there's literally no storage and most rooms you can't even swing a cat around in (I wouldn't swing a cat by the way..)Now, even though we have more than enough to get a decent house, we are going to continue to save every penny. We are determined to get a proper house with front and back gardens, and I don't see why we should give up on that dream, even though it may take longer than most.